d the most we can do is to
give some of their interesting incidents. In 1502 the Great Captain lay in
the far south of Italy, faced by a more powerful French army under the
Duke of Nemours, a young nobleman not wanting in courage, but quite unfit
to cope with the experienced veteran before him. Gonsalvo, however, was in
no condition to try conclusions with his well-appointed enemy. His little
corps was destitute of proper supplies, the men had been so long unpaid
that they were mutinous, he had pleaded for reinforcements in vain, and
the most he could do was to concentrate his small force in the seaport of
Barleta and the neighboring strongholds, and make the best show he could
in the face of his powerful foe.

The war now declined into foraging inroads on the part of the French, in
which they swept the flocks and herds from the fertile pastures, and into
guerilla operations on the part of the Spanish, who ambushed and sought to
cut off the detached troops of the enemy. But more romantic encounters
occasionally took place. The knights on both sides, full of the spirit of
chivalry, and eager to prove their prowess, defied one another to jousts
and tourneys, and for the time being brought back a state of warfare then
fast passing away.

The most striking of these meetings arose from the contempt with which the
French knights spoke of the cavalry of their enemy, which they declared to
be far inferior to their own. This insult, when told to the proud knights
of Gonsalvo's army, brought from them a challenge to the knights of
France, and a warlike meeting between eleven Spanish and as many French
warriors was arranged. A fair field was offered the combatants in the
neutral territory under the walls of the Venetian city of Trani, and on
the appointed day a gallant array of well-armed knights of both parties
appeared to guard the lists and maintain the honor of the tournament.

Spectators crowded the roofs and battlements of Trani, while the lists
were thronged with French and Spanish cavaliers, who for the time laid
aside their enmity in favor of national honor and a fair fight. At the
fixed hour the champions rode into the lists, armed at all points, and
their horses richly caparisoned and covered with steel panoply. Among
those on the Castilian side were Diego de Paredes and Diego de Vera, men
who had won renown in the Moorish wars. Most conspicuous on the other side
was the good knight Pierre de Bayard, the chevalier "_sa